Why Wichita is building a three-lane bridge on a four-lane street
Wichita is about to build a three-lane bridge in the middle of a four-lane street.
Starting Monday, Harry will be closed to traffic at the Arkansas River for a $4.2 million bridge replacement project.
Where the current bridge has two lanes in each direction, the new bridge will have one lane on each side for through traffic and a center lane for westbound cars turning south onto McLean.
It will also include a 6-foot sidewalk on the north side of the bridge and a 10-foot wide bike and scooter path on the south side.
While that configuration might seem like a recipe for a traffic bottleneck, the area’s City Council member, James Clendenin, says he’s been assured by the city’s traffic engineers that it will be better than it is now.
“They tell me it will actually improve the flow, that you won’t have cars stopped in the through lane waiting,” Clendenin said.
The plan is similar to an ongoing proposal to narrow Douglas, the main artery through downtown, to one through lane in each direction with a dedicated left-turn lane in the center and bike/scooter lanes on both sides.
The council voted two weeks ago to accept a grant for a pilot project to test that concept on Douglas before proceeding with permanent changes.
The city is also restriping Mount Vernon from four lanes down to three from Woodlawn to Oliver and eventually to Hillside, Clendenin said.
The idea there is that cars stopping to turn either way off of Mount Vernon will wait in the center lane, leaving the outside lanes open for through traffic.
“So it will eliminate rear-end accidents,” Clendenin said. “Also, it will slow people down to the actual speed limit. That’s kind of a race track right there. There have been a couple of actual deaths that we’ve had on Mount Vernon. Same issue with the (Harry Street) bridge; I think the improvements will improve the safety.”
While the restriping could be fairly easily undone if it doesn’t work as planned on Douglas or Mount Vernon, the configuration of the new bridge is more of an all-in proposition.
The bridge’s construction manager, Steve Degenhardt said the three-lane configuration will be permanent.
But he said the data collected by city engineers shows the bridge will be sufficient for Harry traffic now and into the future.
“This area is already pretty well developed” so future traffic volume isn’t expected to increase very much, Degenhardt said.
The city’s traffic study found that a large number of motorists turn left onto McLean at the west end of the bridge anyway, so the inside lane is already pretty much a de facto turning lane already. The current outside lane approaching the bridge eastbound will be made into a right-turn lane onto McLean, Degenhardt said.
Also, Harry west of the bridge jogs around at a railroad crossing between Seneca and Meridian, meanders through an industrial area and then dead ends in a residential neighborhood at the I-235 freeway, so it’s not as direct or heavily traveled by commuters as some of the alternatives, he said.
Harry Street will close for the bridge replacement project starting Monday and will remain closed through spring of 2021, according to a city statement.
During the closure, eastbound traffic on Harry will be detoured at McLean and directed to Lincoln, about a half mile to the north.
Weststbound traffic will be detoured to Lincoln at Harry and Broadway, although local traffic will be allowed on Harry between Broadway and Greenway Boulevard for access to homes and businesses.
Electronic message boards have been posted on Harry to give motorists advance warning of the closure.
This story was originally published November 29, 2019 at 5:03 AM.
